


Every Night We Save Ourselves

by elrhiarhodan



Series: Elrhiarhodan's 2019 Personal Writing Challenge [3]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Harry Hart, Backstory, Coming Out, Gen, Grief, Harry Hart - Merlin friendship, Looney Tunes as Therapy, Merlin is Denzil, PTSD, Pre-Canon, What's Opera Doc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 09:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18279974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: It's 1990 and Harry has established himself as an agent of astounding prowess.  But he's human and hasn't yet been hardened by the work he does.  Merlin isn't Merlin, yet.  He's Denzil, and he's Harry's handler.  He knows just how shattered Harry is by his last mission, and shows up in the dark hours past midnight, with popcorn, video tapes, and a strong shoulder to cry on.





	Every Night We Save Ourselves

**January, 1990**

Harry wakes up, his throat raw from screaming. He's drenched in sweat and he thinks he might have pissed himself.

He can still see the dead and the dying, the murdered innocents who'd wanted nothing more than freedom to live their lives and make their own choices. Men and women brutally slaughtered by an oppressive regime intent on staying in power. The odor of death still clogs his nose, his throat; the screams of the wounded and dying still ring in Harry's ears.

He's been an agent for two years now, he's saved the world several times over, but he's never had a mission affect him like this.

In the shower, scalding hot waters pounding on his skin, Harry tells himself it's not his fault. He'd been there to do a job, to engineer the collapse of the last Communist regime in Europe. It had been a success, but a terrible and bloody one. 

He scrubs at the imaginary blood but it doesn't wash off. It'll never wash off.

It's only when the water turns cold that Harry gets out of the shower. He wraps himself in his bathrobe and doesn't head back to bed. He can't bear the thought of being alone in the dark, with just his thoughts spiraling around everything that had gone wrong. He heads into the living room and turns on all of the lights – as if they could banish the blackness of his thoughts.

Mr. Pickle lifts his head and looks at Harry, then goes back to sleep and Harry's loathe to disturb him. Perhaps he should bring Pickle to bed with him – a move the kennel masters have advised against. And as much as Harry loves his little dog, he really doesn't like sleeping with him. He doesn't like sleeping with _anyone_ , truthfully. Gawain, the agent he'd worked with in Romania, had suggested that Harry get himself laid; good, vigorous sex – according to him - is the cure for the post-mission blahs. He'd even offered the name of a very fine professional who would accommodate every whim, but Harry had politely declined.

Arthur had commended them both for their good word, but when Harry had mentioned all of the civilian casualties, Arthur had shrugged and suggested that if he's so terribly bothered by death, then he's in the wrong job. The greater good – the freedom from the Communist scourge – well justified the loss of life. And as Galahad himself had noted in his after action report, so many of those deaths had been due to friendly fire. It hadn't been Kingsman's fault that the Romanians had been so badly organized that they couldn't tell friend from foe.

Harry's halfway through a bottle of mediocre Scotch – he knows enough not to binge on the good stuff – when the doorbell rings. It's after two AM and that's never a good time for unexpected visitors. Unfortunately, Harry's a little unsteady on his feet – the lack of sleep, the alcohol, the receding adrenaline rush all combine to leave him in a state incompatible with safe gun handling. There is a ceremonial dagger he'd brought back from a mission in Nepal, which is marginally safer, if just by the virtue of its non-existent edge. But it's pointy and will penetrate flesh if necessary.

The bell rings again and Harry signals for Pickle to stay put, the dog is Kingsman trained and knows better than to bark. He goes to the door and carefully checked the peephole (as a candidate, he'd learned how easily he could get an eye blown out from a bullet through the glass lens). He doesn't have to worry about that right now, unless his handler, Denzil, is going to kill him.

"What do you want?" Harry puts the dagger down on the hall table.

"Open the door; let me in. It's fucking cold out here."

Harry finds himself automatically obeying, unlocking the door and letting him – and a blast of icy cold air – in. Denzil has a way of making Harry do things he ordinarily won't even try. That's a mark of a good handler, he assumes. "I'll ask again, what do you want?"

"Ye look rough." Denzil looks the opposite of rough, skin smooth, his head freshly shaved, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. 

Harry shrugs. He can just imagine what he looks like, still damp hair curling like a rat's nest, blood shot eyes, naked underneath a ratty plaid bathrobe he's had since university. "That still doesn't answer my question."

"Ye also look like ye could use a friend."

"What?" 

"Don't ye know what a friend is?" 

Denzil's being sarcastic, Harry hopes. "I do, but you should know, Kingsman agents don't have friends. They have assets, colleagues, acquaintances, but they don't have _friends_."

"Did Arthur give ye that speech when he called ye Galahad the first time?" Denzil pushes his way past Harry, into the house. Harry follows in helpless curiosity, watching as Denzil greets Mr. Pickle, who'd come to investigate, and looks around. "Where's yer VCR? And actually, where's yer telly?"

"Why?"

"I have a treat for ye, and don't tell me ye don't have a telly. I've checked yer records, ye fee to the Beeb's been paid for the year." 

Harry glares at Denzil. "I don't watch porn."

"I know."

"You do?"

"I know a lot of things about ye, Harry Hart. I know why ye don't take honeypot missions or go visit high end prostitutes after a grueling mission."

Harry feels the panic start to build under his heart. He hears himself saying, "I'm not a homosexual."

"I know that, too." Denzil's lips quirk. "Ye don't like sex."

Harry nods very slowly and lets out a deep breath. He's too tired to argue, and besides, if he can't be honest with his handler, then he's going to have a lot of problems down the line. "Sometimes I think it'd be easier if I was homosexual."

"Eh, maybe. And the word is 'gay'. We prefer being called gay. Or queer. Not homosexual. It's …" Denzil wrinkles his nose, "a fucking nasty word the head doctors like to use. It's almost as bad as 'invert'."

Harry's drunk and tired and still wound up from his nightmares. He doesn't know why he's standing in his living room discussing sexual politics with his handler. But then it hits him. _We prefer being called gay…_ "You're gay?" Harry tightens the belt on his robe, feeling far too exposed.

Denzil grins, "Bent as a paperclip. But believe me, yer pasty English body holds no attraction. Now, where's yer fucking telly?"

Harry opens a large cabinet to reveal a nice color set with a built-in VCR – he'd sprung for that with his first check from Kingsman. Not that he ever really has time to use it.

"Ye have a microwave?"

Harry nods. Denzil reaches into the bag that Harry hadn't even realized he'd been carrying and pulls out a package of microwave popcorn. "Go make that – no more than three minutes, unless ye want yer flat to stink like a burnt shoe."

Harry retreats to the kitchen, puts the stuff in the microwave and checks the little washer-dryer unit tucked in the corner. As he'd expected, there are sweatpants and a sweatshirt in the dryer, and Harry fumbles his way into them while the popcorn starts exploding. It'll probably be too salty and too greasy, but suddenly, Harry has an appetite and his mouth waters.

The popping slows to a crawl and Harry turns off the microwave. Denzil's right, burnt popcorn is nasty and smelly and given how few windows he has in his flat, the odor could linger for weeks. He doesn't bother emptying the popcorn into a bowl; he just grabs the still-steaming bag and goes back to the living room.

Denzil has the telly on and seems to be confounded by the VCR. "Yer set-up's crap, ye know?"

Harry drops the bag on the coffee table and goes to see what's wrong. "No, I don't – it works. Why do you think it's crap?"

"All the excess wire and they're crappy wires, too – leads to unnecessary signal degradation. Next time I come over, I'll bring my tools and kit and get ye properly hooked up."

Harry is bemused. "Thanks, I guess. And what are we watching?"

"A classic. Now get yer ass on the sofa."

In keeping with the theme of the evening, Harry obeys. Denzil turns off the overhead light, flicks on the table lamp and plops himself down next to Harry. He's got the remote in hand and points it at the telly. The gray static on the screen changes to bright color and when Denzil presses a second button, raucous music blares from the speakers.

Music that Harry hasn't heard since his childhood. He grabs the remote from Merlin and presses the pause button. "We're watching cartoons?"

"Aye. The classics. The best of Bugs and Elmer."

Harry blinks. "You're crazy. You come over in the middle of the night to watch stupid cartoons?"

"I may be crazy, but these cartoons are works of art." Merlin takes the remote back and hits play. "And now, hush, this one's my favorite."

In contrast to the hurdy-gurdy racket of the opening theme, the sound of Wagner comes pouring out of the speakers. Harry's surprised at the spare, modern quality of the artwork as clouds and lightening move across the screen, directed by none other than the operatic hero, the demigod, Seigfreid. Or rather, Elmer Fudd in bizarre tin-can armor. Harry feels himself cracking a smile as Elmer sing-speaks "Be werry quiet, I'm hunting wabbits".

But the time Bugs makes his appearance and confronts the crazed Elmer, singing, "Oh mighty warrior of great fighting stock, might I enquire, what's up, doc?", Harry's full-bore smiling, so hard his face hurts.

It's deliciously ridiculous, Bugs cross-dressing and enticing Elmer from the back of an impossibly huge horse, the equally impossible architecture and geography, the over-the-top emotions – everything that opera – especially Wagnerian opera - is supposed to be, but in a six-minute cartoon.

Harry's laughing so hard his chest and belly start to ache, he can't breath and he can't stop, and then he's crying. Denzil holds him as sobs wrack his body. The telly keeps playing in the background, the cacophony of hurdy-gurdy music and the tricky rabbit and the moronic hunter blend into some weird, soothing melody – the familiarity is another layer of badly needed comfort.

He finally is able to stop crying, but Denzil keeps rubbing his back. "Ye all right now?"

"I think so." Harry takes a deep breath. It hurts but not like it did before. "How did you know?"

"That ye needed a friend tonight?" Denzil shrugs. "I went through yer mission report, it was not an easy thing to read. Quite an indictment."

"Huh. I thought I did a good job of masking my anger."

"It was scathing, and mostly self-directed. I don't think ye deserve to carry the blame ye've placed on yerself. The mission was a success, after all."

Harry sighs. "I can't really disagree, but there was so much death and destruction, it's hard not to see it as a failure. A Kingsman values life, and will only take a life to save another. It's practically the agency's motto."

"And ye didn't take a life, Harry. Ye saved plenty."

Harry knows that's the truth. "It still feels like a failure."

"Ye going to keep beating yerself up over it?"

Harry glares at Denzil, but he does realize that it's pointless. "Hand me the popcorn, all right?"

"It's cold by now."

"Give it to me and I'll fix it. Rewind the tape so we can watch the rest of this foolishness."

Harry heads to the small kitchen, takes a stick of butter from the fridge and melts it. He dumps the popcorn in a bowl, drops the hot butter on top, swirls the whole thing around, flinging kernels everywhere, and goes back to the living room.

"That smells surprisingly good."

Harry thinks he should have grabbed some napkins or paper towels but can't be arsed to go back and get some. He hands the bowl to Denzil and rejoins him on the couch. Denzil hits play and the hurdy-gurdy music again fills the living room. Harry takes a handful of the greasy popcorn and shoves it in his mouth with a deliberate lack of delicacy.

Elmer chases Bugs, Bugs outwits Elmer, Daffy Duck makes an appearance, and all is right with the world.

At least for now.

_FIN_


End file.
